IN THE
SHADOW OF THE SLEEPING LADY
By
Aoi Tokugawa
I
A Boat
Ride on the Bay
I had
never been there before. In truth, I had never imagined that such a place
existed in California; nor that such a place could be found existing so close
to San Francisco. Oh, of course, I had visited San Francisco before; I went
there with my husband. The first time I visited the city, I was a tourist,
visiting the city by the Golden Gate or “Baghdad by the Bay” as it has often
been called, seeing an exotic place: what tourists see. The second time I
visited San Francisco, it was to see the city that tourists do not see. Much of
what I saw was through the eyes of one of the city’s policemen; offering me
views of the city that looked into the heart of its neighborhoods and its
people. Still, I never believed that such places as Marin County, Sausalito, Mill
Valley, or Point Reyes, places of stark contrast when compared to the city,
existed but a few moments’ drive across the Golden Gate.
Early in
the morning of my first visit to these wonderful places, I stood on a dock by
San Francisco Bay, beneath a clear blue sky, the first such sky in several
weeks, as though it was provided specifically for my own special delight.
Seagulls, white and gray, with brilliant yellow beaks flew overhead, while
others, not so energetic, perhaps feeling a bit lazy in the early morning air,
sat on the railings at the water’s edge, looking at me, watching me, perhaps
hoping that I would provide them with some tasty tidbit for their breakfast.
Close behind me was the long, gray sandstone and bronze Victorian façade of the
Ferry Building, with its tall clock tower rising to the blue; a sight which
could be seen from far across the bay in Oakland and Berkeley, and westward
along the miles of “the slot,” as Market Street is often called by natives of
the city; a broad avenue through the sheer cliffs of granite, stone, and glass
that line both its sides for as far as the eye could see.
I stood
and waited in the shadow of that historic building, which had existed in its
current form, far back into the 19th century, and which had survived
the devastating 1906 earthquake, providing a symbol of hope to San Francisco’s
residents. Certainly, my husband and I could have driven the few miles westward
from the heart of the city and across the Golden Gate to Marin County, but he
insisted that a boat trip across the bay, to the shores of Marin, was truly the
only way to do justice to San Francisco and its bay. I watched, not without
some trepidation, as our boat approached; white and blue, and big enough to
hold at least two hundred people, the water breaking white at its bow, hurried
to dock. Coming from a mountainous region of Japan, I was not accustomed to the
idea of sailing across a large and deep body of water. From the back of my mind
came a voice saying one was quite intended to keep their feet on solid ground,
not to go motoring across the blue waters of this inlet of the Pacific Ocean.
With my husband’s reassurance, and inspired by his own smile of delight and
enthusiasm, we boarded the M.V. Marin and within a few minutes we were making
way across the deep, cold water to someplace new.
As we
pulled away from San Francisco, I stood on the main deck, outside at the stern,
with the chilled wind, laced with the faint fragrance of salt and seaweed, in
my face. As I looked back at the city, at the Ferry Building and the Bay Bridge
to its left, stretching high in the sky across the water to Treasure Island and
beyond, my mind was overwhelmed by the vision. There are no words to describe completely
the image accurately. The beauty of the apparition was almost like a dream and
took my breath away. To utter the world “beautiful” would have been an
understatement.
If I
could recall nothing else of those moments on San Francisco Bay, I would
remember the blue of the sky. Such a simple thing; but the one that impressed
me the most as I stood on the deck of our ferry. It was not the blue of Japan,
what Lafcadio Hearn described as the “luminous blue,” the pale, pastel blue
that is the roof of Japan; but the deep, rich, almost lusty sapphire blue that
is the canopy of California.
As the
boat journeyed first toward and then past the infamous prison known as
Alcatraz, I watched the bridge and the city recede into the distance, while at
the same time the Golden Gate seemed to grow larger. As my husband busied
himself with his camera, watching the water and the changing skyline of San
Francisco, I stood in the wind and looked into the water, hoping that by some
ominous chance, I might catch even a brief glimpse of a great white shark; a
brief look at perhaps the deadliest predator of the sea, who is known to
inhabit the waters of San Francisco Bay. Yet, from time to time, I would look
up and around at my fellow passengers, most of whom were seated, either inside
the main cabin or behind windscreens. “Why,” I wondered, “do they just sit? Why
are they not looking at the spectacular views from the deck?” This rural
traveller, from the mountains of Honshū, could not imagine that anyone would
not be mesmerized by the images passing us by.
Not far
from Alcatraz Island is Angel Island; much broader and taller, like a rounded
mountain top sticking out of the sea, covered in trees, shrubs and golden
grasses. We cruised past old, dilapidated barracks and concrete buildings on
the island’s east side, the United States Immigration Station, Angel Island:
the first port-of-call for Chinese and Japanese immigrants who had come to the
United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries; just as ominous as
Ellis Island in the harbor of New York City. Perhaps making the place seem even
gloomier to me were two facts, unknown to most Americans, including residents
of the Bay Area. Due to the restrictions of the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882,
many immigrants spent years on the island, waiting for entry. Likewise, and
perhaps worst of all, was the fact that the island’s eastside buildings were
used as a holding facility for Japanese prisoners of war during the War in the
Pacific.
On the
island’s west side is an old U.S. Army fort, Ft. McDowell, dating back to the
Civil War and now preserved as a historic site. My husband, ever a source of
information tourists are not aware of, pointed out to me that on top of the
island, at the very summit, was a Nike missile base, in use during the 1950s
and 1960s. Perhaps cynically, I thought, “That is so very much USA!” America
always seems to be at war: fighting. I have had this impression for many years
now and asked my husband why the United States always seems to be at war. He,
who knows war all too well, has told me from time to time, that indeed, America
is always fighting; partially due to its own arrogance, and because the country
(big, diverse, and often divided along economic, cultural, and racial lines)
needs war as a means of unification. The country needs a “boogie-man” to hold
things together and to bolster its economy. Moreover, I asked myself, “Why
would they place a nuclear missile base (for the air defense missiles were
equipped with nuclear warheads) on an island named for angels? Was this some
sort of “black joke?”
II
Sausalito
My musing
was interrupted by the sudden slowing of the boat in preparation for docking at
Sausalito, as it passed the Marin town of Tiburón, situated on a long, narrow
peninsula that extends southward into the bay, with its harbors for motor boats
and sailboats, and houses perched precariously on the sea cliffs that descended
to meet the water. I looked to the south and there was a remarkable sight: the
twin towers of the Golden Gate Bridge, raising their heads above the gold and
green hills of the Marin Headlands. Then I allowed my eyes to travel northward
along the near horizon. There were hills, steep hills, some cloaked in a deep,
dark green, others in tones of green and gold, and others entirely covered in
gold: the color of the wild grasses of Northern California in the months of summer.
The hills were quite remarkable in both their height and their extent, rising
and falling, then rising again, into steep ranks of color. I wondered at the countless
slopes; in San Francisco to the south covered by houses and apartment
buildings, and before me, clothed in the colors of nature. Certainly, I supposed,
any kid living in the city, or growing up in Marin County, who practiced Kendō, must be in very good condition from
walking up and down such slopes, surely making them strong, tough, and giving
them amazing stamina.
Yet,
there were even more surprises ahead for me. The hills were dotted by houses of
every imaginable shape, size, and color, descending along narrow, winding
streets, down to the edge of the bay, where the town of Sausalito itself had
grown up. Sausalito, which in Spanish means “a place of abundance,” was originally a fishing village that had grown into a shipbuilding
town, rising right at the edge of San Francisco Bay and up the sides of the
town’s steep hillsides. Now it is primarily a place for exclusive shops, art
galleries and restaurants frequented by tourists, as well as being a “bedroom
community” for prominent San Francisco businessmen, artists, and entertainers.
When I
was younger, perhaps eighteen years old, and still in high school, a fortuneteller
told me that my life was linked to a beach or a coastline. Fate, she told me,
had linked me to a town that I had never seen and knew nothing about, in which
there were many small houses on the slopes of a mountain near the sea, and a
big bridge. When I first visited San Francisco, I thought that perhaps that
city was the place she spoke of; certainly, it fit the requirements.
Nevertheless, when I saw Sausalito for the first time, I knew that this place,
Sausalito and Marin County, was what had appeared in my mind’s eye. So many surprises, and so early in the day! Suddenly I could
understand what Jo Ann Beard, one of America’s best essayists meant when she
said that she “loved New York for its simple surprises, although in truth, Oregon,
Iowa, Arizona, and everywhere else had simple surprises as well: cantaloupe
colored sunrises, banded cows, etc.” Everywhere I looked there were simple
surprises and I knew that then there would be so many more to come.
The boat’s engines rumbled as, unaided, it maneuvered itself alongside
the dock. A gangplank was quickly rolled up to the door at the boat’s side and we
disembarked. We walked along the pier, immediately entering into a park-like
area where other passengers waited to get onboard. The first person I noticed
however, the first resident of Sausalito that I saw, was a man singing and
playing a guitar. He was in his fifties perhaps, deeply tanned skin, graying
light brown hair, wearing a small black cowboy-style hat, a purple tie-dyed
shirt, blue jeans, and no shoes. Sitting on the lap of this musician, himself
seated on a park bench, was a tan dachshund, wearing a pair of large sunglasses
with multi-colored frames. The man’s songs were wonderful and fun; and the sunglasses
seemed to suit the dog, who seemed to thoroughly enjoy the attention he was
receiving from the crowd of visitors that quickly gathered around him and his
human companion. Perhaps the man was homeless, or simply maybe this was the
livelihood the he had chosen for himself, but it did not seem to be very
important. What was clear to me was that the man was happy, liked people, liked
music, and he liked his dog, who for all the world seemed devoted to him. He
was, for all I could tell, a nice man with a cute dog, not a criminal at all,
who lived in Sausalito and fit so well into Sausalito’s atmosphere, bright and
fresh, and not out of place at all, as perhaps he might have been regarded in more
staid, conservative Japan.
As I walked around the streets of “downtown” Sausalito, I found
everything delightful. The town
was both quaint and cute, and each of its hundred shops and galleries was
unique and fun, with exciting and unique things to see in their windows and
interiors. I found also that Sausalito is a town of and for artists. Some
people think that art is something lofty, difficult, a bit above most people;
yet in this town, art is part of its makeup: present everywhere you go, every
day. There was every kind of architecture, from classic California Victorian to
the most modern. There were many Spanish-styled houses and buildings. I could
not help thinking that Spanish styled buildings were very nice indeed; so
different in some ways from the Japanese architecture I was used to, except
perhaps for the use of beautiful roof tiles of terra cotta clay. Then I
recalled that a long time ago, California was a Spanish colony. My husband
speaks Spanish and I thought that was a nice link to the history of the place. But
then, I also remembered a red and black-toned woodblock print by my husband’s
childhood friend, Tom Killion, of the red and gold cliffs at the Marin
Headlands, the fabled “Golden Gate,” that included an old, iron, or perhaps
bronze cannon. Red and black – the colors of war, blood, and death: things that
now seemed so contrary to the delights I was seeing. There had been a time when
Spain was the enemy of Sausalito and San Francisco; but the weapons of war no
longer had a place here.
III
Mill
Valley
Mill Valley is
located just a few minutes by car north of Sausalito on the western shore of
Richardson Bay, a small inlet of the much bigger San Francisco Bay. Beyond the
marshlands by the bay, the village extends westward; occupying two narrow,
heavily wooded canyons that range back to what has become symbolic of Marin
County, Mount Tamalpais, “The Sleeping Lady.”
The actual
meaning of “Tamalpais” is a bit clouded. Some people believe that the name
comes from the Miwok Indian Tribe, the first residents of Mill Valley, meaning
“coast mountain” (tamal pais). Other people believe the name comes from the
Spanish Tamal pais meaning “Tamal country,’ in reference to the local Indians
whom the Spanish called “Tamal.” Most Mill Valley residents believe that the
name is the Miwok word for “sleeping lady” or “maiden” and comes from the Miwok
Legend of the Sleeping Lady. That is my belief as well; for every time I
looked at the village from a distance, or see in in my mind, I see the
silhouette of a giant, beautiful sleeping lady; the ridge of the mountain
forming the soft curves of a reclining woman: her hair, her breast, her long
flowing gown. She is elegant, sensual, maybe even erotic and if I were a man, I
would want to extend my hand and touch her breast myself.
We stayed at the
home of my husband’s parents, high up on the central spur of the mountain and
the first thing that we did, after being settled in our room, was to walk down
to the main part of the village. The streets are quite narrow, one lane, steep
in many places, and the area is heavily wooded with oak, pine, cypress, acacia
and eucalyptus trees, as well as more types of shrubs than I could possibly
name. The first thing my husband showed to me was a stairway that extended from
the street, down a steep incline, alongside a dry creek, to another street,
three or four hundred feet below. He mentioned that when he was a kid, going to
elementary school, he used to use the creek bed as a shortcut down, and
sometimes back up. Actually, he had several such shortcuts, all of them steep.
As a child, he must have developed very strong legs.
We continued
down the street, past beautiful houses, some hidden behind fences, down a steep
hill where it intersected with another street as well as a long flight of stairs,
which led down to the main part of town: over two hundred of them. It was easy,
and quick, to get down the hill that way, but I found out later that when my
husband attended junior high school and high school, he went that way each day,
down and up, for six years. Amazing! What endurance!
Once we reached
“downtown,” we turned to the left, down a tree-lined street, past City Hall,
and then into a residential neighborhood of beautiful, well-kept trees, shrubs,
and fine-looking, stately homes. This was the Blithdale Canyon area, which
during the late 19th century, became the first part of the valley to
be well populated. This was where the wealthy and elite built their homes and
settled in to the quiet life of Mill Valley, with street names like Blithdale,
Bigelow, and Coronet. There is a creek, which runs all year, that flows through
the neighborhood, along Blithdale Avenue, with trees gathered along its edge.
The houses were perhaps a bit less grand than on Bigelow, but still equally
amazing. I felt as though I was walking through a village area in Gifu
Prefecture; and while some of the houses would not have fit a Japanese village,
there were others that did. I saw one small house, surrounded by a low fence,
with the main entrance guarded by an actual torii.
The house was surrounded by towering trees and was of a design clearly taken
from the early Shōwa era. There was no mistaking it. Had I been transported
suddenly back to Japan? No, my husband explained, at one time, Japanese
architecture was quite popular in Mill Valley; and indeed, many homes built
after the beginning of the 20th century had Japanese design features
and decorations.
We walked along
the creek and through a wooded park area. Across the creek, hidden in the shadows
of some very tall oak and laurel trees, was another house, also a bit Japanese
in design, sitting by itself, with the water flowing by its front. It was magnificent
to say the least, and turned my thoughts to Henry David Thoreau:
I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only
the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to
live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice
resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out
all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout
all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into
a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why
then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to
the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give
a true account of it in my next excursion. For most men, it appears to me, are
in a strange uncertainty about it, whether it is of the devil or of God, and
have somewhat hastily concluded that it is the chief end of man here to “glorify
God and enjoy him forever.”
Most of the luxuries, and many of the so-called comforts of life, are not
only not indispensable, but positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind.
…I am no more lonely than the loon in the pond that laughs so loud, or than
Walden Pond itself. What company has that lonely lake, I pray? And yet it has
not the blue devils, but the blue angels in it, in the azure tint of its
waters. The sun is alone, except in thick weather, when there sometimes appear
to be two, but one is a mock sun. God is alone…
I
watched water sprites dancing on the water of the stream, felt and heard the
crunch of dried leaves beneath my feet, and did what I had not done in many
long years, climbed a tree, as though the spirit of the place, the spirit of
nature had set me free. For a few treasured moments, I was no longer a wife, a mother,
someone with a job and responsibilities, but the little kid who had been locked
away inside of me.
We
walked back along Blithdale, toward the main part of town again, and each
house, each garden was a marvel. I saw the church that my husband used to go to,
and the place where he attended his first dance ever, a teen party for high
school students, at the Outdoor Art Club; a building designed in 1904 by famed architect
Bernard Maybeck, who designed many other beautiful houses in Mill Valley,
Berkeley, and San Francisco, as well as the Palace of Fine Arts, the classic
Greek-style domed building, a remnant of the Pan-Pacific Exposition of 1915,
which stands at the edge of San Francisco Bay between the Marina Green and the
Presidio.
Mill
Valley is home to countless unique shops, art galleries, and restaurants and
during our walk we visited as many as we possibly could. No two places were
alike. We happened to walk through a gallery of shops that included a
restaurant that I felt was especially wonderful, called El Paseo, “the pass.”
Built decades ago of red brick, it was designed to resemble a Spanish or early
Californian hacienda. The covered brick walkways and the ivy-covered walls
provided a peaceful, shady escape from the sun and warmth of the day. To sit in
one of the sheltered arcades, to touch the brick walls, brought on a nostalgic
feeling, not unlike the feeling I had when I visited the Sierra foothills town
of Folsom, which dates back to the gold rush. To sit in either of those places,
to touch the walls of buildings, was to touch history.
A
Mill Valley landmark, really in institution, is the Mill Valley Market on Corte
Madera Avenue, which has been run by the same family, the Canepa family, since
1929. People in Mill Valley tend to be “foodies”; that is, aficionados of food
and drink. Of course, the town has its supermarket, three of them, located at
its east end, near the bay, but in the village itself, if one wants the best in
meats, vegetables, and things uncommon, then the Mill Valley Market is the
place to go. The shelves are lined with foods, fresh, canned, or packaged, from
Europe, Asia, and South America: things I have never tasted let alone heard of.
Why, on one shelf alone, there had to be over thirty different brands of olive
oil, including oil from villages in Italy and Greece that no one in Japan knew
existed. The range of foods was from the strange to the exotic: all of it, well
most of it, probably delicious. However, the prices were certainly not cheap.
As my husband said, “You get what you pay for,” and for some items, one pays
plenty. Perhaps the price of the fresh fish, much of it flown in daily, was
what shocked me the most. Of course, we could not leave the store without
buying something, and so my husband introduced me to something equally as
exotic as some new Italian sauce, but not nearly as expensive: root beer!
Later, he would treat me to something even more exotic and tasty: a scoop of
vanilla ice cream floated in a glass of root beer. Fantastic!
We
walked past the wine shop, past the former railroad station, now converted to a
café and book store, past the pizzeria, a toy store, a small micro-brewery, and
within a few minutes, we had left the “downtown” part of the village and were
back in the forest, and perhaps my favorite place of all, Old Mill Park; a
charming refuge consisting of acres of towering redwood trees, oaks, and
laurels, with a stream flowing through its middle. The focal point of the park,
the feature that gives the park its name, is an old sawmill dating back to the
1830s. I did not hesitate to climb on its heavy, two-foot thick timbered
frame and stand at its middle high above stream. There is a playground in the
park for children, with swings, slides and such, but the real fun of Old Mill
Park is climbing in the trees, or into the hollowed out stump of some giant
redwood tree. Letting my imagination go and pretending it is a fort was even
more fun. My husband, his brother, and his dog, used to come to this same park
almost every day, and play; indeed, one particular stump, next to the mill was
his fort. His fort became my fort, and in my imagination, I was the hero of a great
battle, but a safe battle, a fun battle, with no injury or death. War is a
terrible thing, but the battles of kids in the forest were fun. Then suddenly,
I was on a great adventure, the leader of an expedition, Indiana Jones in the
Mill Valley forest, climbing trees, descending into the creek bed, walking
through a mysterious tunnel beneath the street that allowed the stream to flow
from one side of the park to the other, climbing up a small cliff and then
crossing an old wooden bridge.
After
a while, we sat on a bench, finished our root beer, and continued to watch the children
play in the park. I noticed that there were not nearly as many children as I
might have expected. My husband agreed. Sadly, it seems that children do not
play outside nearly as much as they used to, when we were children, whether in
Japan or in Mill Valley.
Still,
play seemed to be the required activity. My husband drew out a hopscotch court
on the ground, a game that kids used to play when he was a kid. He told me that
he hadn’t thought about the game in years and years, except for a brief mention
in one of his novels, of some young black girls playing it on Fillmore Street
in a San Francisco ghetto. There can be several players. The first player tosses the
marker (typically a stone, coin, or beanbag) into the first square of the
course. The marker must land completely within the designated square and
without touching a line or bouncing out. The player then hops through the
course, skipping the square with the marker in it. This process is repeated for
all the players and using all the squares on the course. I’m sure we must have
been an interesting sight to passersby as we played. People in middle age simply
don’t play such games. Well perhaps, but we did; although, I have to say, it is
probably easier to play when one is eight or ten years old. Middle age brings
with it stiff joints and pain to those who dare brave the course.
Across
the street from the park is Old Mill School, which dates back to the 1920s,
where my husband attended grades 1 through 6, and up the street is the Mill
Valley Public Library, a beautifully designed building that fits right into the
middle of the redwood trees and blends into the landscape. We visited the library,
then walked around the school, and then up Summit Avenue, headed for home. We
passed the first Catholic church in Mill Valley, the first convent and school,
all dating to the 1860s and 70s, and old Victorian houses, all sheltered among
the trees. The climb up the street was not easy and we took our time, savoring
the sights and the smells. At one spot, I found an old rock stairway and
retaining wall, extending up from the street and then suddenly ending. What had
been the entrance to a stately Victorian mansion, now led nowhere.
By the
time we finished our steep climb up the hill and returned to my husband’s
parent’s house, the sun had almost set. The house is a luxurious two-story
house, perched on a steep slope, its garage, or “carport” as they say, perched
at the edge of street on tall wooden stilts. A lavish garden sits at the front
of the house and the remainder of the property is forest; providing a sanctuary
for the local wildlife. Crows, ravens, jays, quail, hawks and owls, as well as
many other birds make their homes here or come for the food that has daily been
left out for them for years. There are also rabbits, raccoons, and the
occasional skunk, as well as deer. In fact, one deer in particular, was born
beneath a wooden deck, at the rear of the house on the lower level, and
continued to live there for years, sleeping in the garden each day. Sadly, the
deer, who had in effect become a pet, died recently when he was attacked by a
mountain lion. Yes, there are also mountain lions in the area as well as
bobcats and coyotes. Recently there have even been reports of bears in the region.
At
night, Mill Valley is dark. There are almost no streetlights, the only light
coming from the windows of the houses. And it is quiet, except for the sounds
of nature. I could not help but feel how fortunate people in the village are to
live surrounded by trees and animals, so silent and so beautiful.
In the
morning we walked up the road and I admired all the different shapes of houses,
and the shrubs and the trees – giant trees, “USA size,” and all beautiful. We
hiked out onto the side of the mountain and looked up; its peak, with its
ranger station, looming overhead. It seemed just as though I was on Inuyama
with its mountaintop castle looking down at us. Near the top had been a hotel
at one time, actually a train station, hotel, and tavern; for back in the late
19th century and into the early 20th, a railroad had run
from downtown Mill Valley, what is now the café and bookstore, westward along
Blithdale Avenue, and then back and forth and around the mountain. The railroad
served no other purpose other than to entertain visitors; but what an exciting
ride it must have been – especially going down!
IV
Point
Reyes
We
drove to Point Reyes on the far west coast of Marin County, from Mill Valley,
over the western slope of Mt. Tamalpais, and then down to the edge of the
Pacific with charming coastal towns, even smaller than Mill Valley: Stinson
Beach and Bolinas. We passed through restored wetlands, now preserves for
wildlife and then across the notorious San Andreas Fault which separates the
Pt. Reyes National Park from the rest of Marin. The small town of Olema, near
park headquarters was the epicenter of the great 1906 earthquake that destroyed
San Francisco.
At
park headquarters is a marvelous museum of the natural history of Pt. Reyes,
the geology, the plant life, and the animals, which include mice, rabbits,
foxes, coyotes, badgers, bobcats, mountain lions, deer, hawks, and vultures. At
one time, there were even bears; but long before the area became a preserve,
the bears had left in response to pressures from local farms and ranches; yet
there have been reports of bear sightings in the area: perhaps they are
returning. The museum also features many displays of the ocean wildlife that
call the region home or visit it each year, including California sea lions,
elephant seals, sharks, and whales. Because the area has been preserved and
protected from much of man’s intrusion into nature, the flora and fauna
flourish.
What
interested me most were the many hiking trails that branch out from park
headquarters; trails that will take you up into the steep, tree-covered hills,
into marshlands and meadows, or down to the San Andreas Fault itself. I elected
to take the long, winding, but easy trail down to the fault line.
The path
took me past vast meadows of tall grasses, golden and green, surrounded by
thick growths of trees, far different from those that thrive on the eastern
side of the fault in the main part of Marin. Then I encountered a stream,
shaded by trees and shrubs that paralleled the trail, carrying sweet, cool
water southward through the park. There were also what are called “sag ponds”;
areas where the motion of the fault has pulverized the rock and soil so that it
has sunk and compacted and water has collected, giving cattails, reeds and
willows a place to grow. On the other side of the fault were high, rounded
ridges, “mole tracks” as my husband called them, because they resemble the tracks
that a mole or gopher might make in a garden. Actually, they are pressure
ridges, pushed upward by the immense forces present in the San Andreas – energy
so great as to be unimaginable, and which is palpable as one stands there. The
great energy surrounds the visitor and rises up through one’s feet into their
body. The feeling can be both awesome and frightening at one time.
Lining
the trail were also huge growths of wild blackberry bushes. The climate at Pt.
Reyes is cool and summer comes later there than it does to the rest of Marin;
still, young berries were to be found everywhere, then red but soon to be black
and sweet. I kept hoping that by some strange quirk of nature, the bears had
possibly returned and that I would encounter one helping himself to a tasty
blackberry snack. I wanted to see a bear, not in some cage or grotto in a zoo,
but roaming wild. I wanted to be wild, as free a spirit as the bears and the
bunnies of Pt. Reyes. I kept saying to myself, “Come on bear. Come just for a
moment. Look! I brought my husband with me. Take a look. Perhaps he is a bit
tasty!” But no bear came.
A
visitor can walk right up onto the fault line; in fact, there is a fence that
runs east and west that crosses the rupture from the 1906 earthquake. The fence
has been broken, separated, with the western part of the fence eighteen feet
north of the eastern part. This is how far the earth moved during the Great San
Francisco Earthquake, in a matter of three seconds according to eyewitnesses.
Here again, the great energy could be felt: it surrounded me.
This
is a wonderful place for school students to learn about earthquakes, crustal
shift, and the powers of nature. I could not help but to think that people who
live in San Francisco and the Bay Area could perhaps understand, better than
most, Japan’s own recent disaster and sadness because of an earthquake. Human
beings have for ages tried to fight against nature, to overcome such marvels as
storms, and quakes, and now continue the fight by use of modern technology. The
thinking is that if the technology is possible, then fewer people will die as a
result of natural disasters. But, I cannot help but wonder if this is in a way
“wrong thinking?” To fight against nature is to fight against the gods. Is such
a fight possible to win? Personally, I think in the end, it is impossible. I am
sure that many people would disagree with me, particularly people who live in
northern Honshū. “We should overcome nature,” they might argue, “so that there
are no more victims of such calamities.” Still, I think that in the long-term,
it is impossible to fight against nature. We must leave nature to itself. It
would be better if we work to become better stewards of the earth and to avoid
the wrath of the gods. Nature is art made by the gods. Can we alter or control
the art of the gods? It is impossible.
V
An
Evening Walk in Mill Valley
That
evening we were back in Mill Valley walking through the neighborhood at sunset.
The air was warm and except for the occasional car passing us by, all was
quiet. I found myself transported back to Japan; for as we walked, I discovered
almost countless Japanese-style wooden fences; the same fences that one would
see walking down a neighborhood street in Kyōto or even see in some samurai
film. My curiosity got the best of me. I had to see what was behind those
fences that often had thick, tall bamboo growing in front of them. “Oh my!” I
thought as I peeked through several of them along the way. “Samurai houses! I
have come from Japan, only to arrive in Japan again!” The feeling was
unbelievable and at the same time confusing. There were samurai houses, some of
them magnificent, worthy of an Edo period daimyo.
Was I in the hills of Kyōto again? Was I back home in Tajimi? I had to take
photographs to show my friends. They would never believe that I was in Mill
Valley. I could almost hear them, “Oh, you went to Kyōto?”
There
are also strange houses in Mill Valley; houses with ghosts, houses that have
witnessed murders. My husband took me to one such house not far from his
parent’s home. In fact, it had been the home of two of his friends and
playmates from his childhood. However, years later, a lone, psychotic murder
entered the home and massacred the family. Knowing ahead of time that I was
going to visit this house, I expected a feeling, an experience, like that one
might expect from an American horror movie, such as Friday The 13th. Instead of the terror, what I found,
perhaps because of Mill Valley’s old Victorian and Japanese architecture or
because of the lush trees and shrubs, set on a quiet mountain, was an eeriness,
a gothic beauty more appropriate to a 19th century novel than modern
California. In Mill Valley, even horror, even a haunted house, has gothic
beauty.
VI
Looking
Back
The
next morning it was time to leave Mill Valley and Marin. Reluctantly we drove
south on the highway that led back to San Francisco were our trip began; high
above Sausalito and San Francisco Bay, through a tunnel whose southern portal
is painted with rainbows, into the fog and across the Golden Gate Bridge. We
stopped at the south end of the bridge, the toll plaza, and looked back. There
in the wind, in the fog, was the famous bridge, and behind that, the golden and
red cliffs of the entrance to San Francisco Bay, the Golden Gate. No longer
could I see what had become my beloved Mt. Tamalpais or Mill Valley, or even
Sausalito. Only the water, the bridge, and the old fortifications that I saw in
Tom Killion’s print.
Mill
Valley changed me; I hope for the better. It is not a high-tech town, nor is it
necessarily a place of convenience. The streets are narrow, winding, and
sometimes even dangerous. There are few streetlights. In a winter storm, a
broken branch from a tree is likely to knock out electrical power or phone
service to a neighborhood. People do not drive their cars as much; instead,
they walk or ride bicycles, even though the hills are steep. There are
creatures that roam the hills: bobcats, coyotes, even the occasional mountain
lion. In Mill Valley inconvenience does not mean poor. It is a town rich in
imagination and art. There are riches of mind and of spirit. There are no big
hotels, no department stores. Yes, there are a couple of supermarkets on the
outskirts of, but what fun are they? Shopping in Mill Valley Market, as small
as it may be and as narrow as the aisles are, is more like a visit to a toy
store.
In
Mill Valley, in the shadow of the Sleeping Lady, I could see art. I could touch
history. I was free to use the imagination of a child. I could see impossible,
imaginary things; a tree stump became a fort, and a small tunnel with a creek
running through it, beneath a road, became a mysterious place. I could climb
trees and play in Old Mill Park, and become anything I wanted.
As the
actor, Peter Coyote, who lives up on the mountain and loves Mill Valley said,
“This is my turf…a place where I can get good meat form Kean’s (the butcher at
the Mill Valley Market), impeccable service from Dimitroff the framer, and
careful attention to my car from Olivera’s gas station. There are deer in my
yard every day.”
I
think back now to the trees, the creeks, the old houses, the mountain, and the
deep blue sky above it. These are simple things, but such simplicity, such
freedom to imagine, even to be a kid and play, are things we truly need, and we
too often forget.
Translated
by Tokugawa H.
Copyright
© 2011 by Aoi Tokugawa.
